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We all laughed at the vision of two drunk college boys stuck miles from their fraternity house, without clothes or money. This and the other stories Hue recounted over Felicia’s berry cobbler had me laughing until it hurt.
By the time we were ready to retire to our bedroom upstairs, all the laughter had loosened Liam up, and he seemed to have gotten past whatever had bothered him earlier today.
He opened the door for me as he always did and closed it behind us.
I jumped him for the kiss I’d wanted to give him all day.
He returned my passion with his own fervor, but broke it off early.
“Now tell me what the problem is,” I demanded.
“No problem,” he said, averting his eyes.
I buried my head in his shoulder. “If I’m really your girlfriend, I deserve to know.”
He held me quietly, rocking.
“A gentleman would confide in his lady.”
That loosened his lips. “It’s Winterbourne again.”
I pulled back to look into his face. “How so?”
“They’ve outbid us.”
I placed a hand on his chest and scratched lightly. “Can you match them?”
“I could try, but it won’t work. They’ve got a spy inside, so as soon as I do, they’ll know and up their offer again. Hue told me they vowed to outbid anything I come up with.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “What if you offer more right now, here, in private, where nobody else knows?”
He kissed me on the forehead. “That’s not the way it works. We have to have a written contract and all that. And besides, twenty-percent extra isn’t something they can ignore.”
I couldn’t believe I’d heard him correctly. At the size of this deal, twenty percent was double-digit millions. “They’d be nuts to overbid you by that much, wouldn’t they?”
“Not if they think it’s the knockout blow.”
I hugged him again and wished I had a way to ease the disappointment.
“Don’t worry, Sunshine. I’ll find a way. I always do.”
His voice belied his optimism. His company hung in the balance, and we both knew it.
Chapter 30
Amy
It had beenthree days since Liam had learned Hue Schmulian intended to accept the offer from his nemesis, Damien Winterbourne.
Liam insisted it was just another setback, but the way he had explained it before, after losing the Sanders deal to Winterbourne, he’d needed this one to keep his big investors from pulling out and taking down his company. He’d stayed late last night at the office, brainstorming things with Josh, and he was there again today.
I smiled as I pushed through the glass doors to the always-welcome cool air of our building lobby with tonight’s steak in my shopping bag. The clack of my heels on the marble floor echoed in the large room.
“Miss Amy,” Carl, our concierge, called. “I've got a package for you. Actually, for Mr. Quigley, if you could take it upstairs.”
I walked over to retrieve the envelope Carl held out. It was one of those FedEx letter envelopes. “Sure, Carl. No problem.” The return address was Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. I put the envelope under my arm and headed upstairs.
Once inside our home, I put Liam's envelope on the front table. It hit me how calling thisour homeseemed so natural now.
